While Microsoft still hasn’t announced a release date for Windows 8, rumour has it that it’ll hit the shelves later this year. For the record, this will be the third straight time a major Windows version is launched close to the release of arguably the world’s most popular Linux distro – Ubuntu. Ubuntu and Canonical have cornea long way since their 7.04 Feisty Fawn release, which followed Microsoft’s Windows Vista. Back then. Canonical failed to capitalize on Vista’s universal rejection by its users. If reviews of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview are any indication, it’ll be a very cold winter for Microsoft. But, more importantly for the Linux community, does Ubuntu 12.04 have what it takes to position itself as a more usable alternative? The Ubuntu advantage It’s ironic how the one feature in recent Ubuntu releases that might have lost it some users will now work in its favor and attract new users by the bucket-load. We are, obviously, talking about Unity. Microsoft’s revolutionary Metro desktop is already facing criticism similar to that Canonical fielded when it Introduced Unity on the desktop. They listened, learned and they evolved. Furthermore, Windows 8 is a major departure from how Microsoft does desktops ֊ offline installations that could connect to each other. Now, with Windows 8, you have an online desktop designed to deliver the best of the cloud to your visually new desktop. It can do things in a way that no version of Windows ever could before. And we in the Linux world know what that means, right? Be it with KDE 4. Gnome 3, or Unity, suddenly introducing new paradigms and a dramatic new way of doing things displeases users. And while the changes might be new to Windows they have long been mainstays on the Linux desktop in general, and Ubuntu in particular. In this feature, we’ll...

Canonical has released Ubuntu 12.04. its fourth long-term support (LTS) release. Unlike standard Ubuntu releases, which come every six months and integrate majo՜ new technologies, the focus of any LTS release is to provide a secure, stable platform that businesses and demanding home users can rely on. Usually, this means an uninspiring release – few new features for users to play with, just lots of incremental improvements that everyore welcomes but nobody feels excited about. Ubuntu 12.04 is different, however, being the first LTS release tc feature Unity as its default desktop environment. Has Canonical delivered a desktop that users of the last LTS can confidently upgrade to. or will they be left cold when support for it is ended in April 2013. a year before the next one is released9 The answer is yes – mostly. Unity has become much faster and more reliable. In our testing, we found that it remained responsive even when running half-a-dozen applications and ripping a DVD. a taxing workload for most machines, suggesting that upgrading users have little to worry about in this regard. We also found that the Dash works well. It’s easy to access, whether by clicking the Ubuntu icon with the mouse or pressing the Windows key. and once you’re in it. the built-in search quickly finds the aoplications and files that you’re looking for. The new HUD feature does the same for most application menus, too. and if you’ve net used it. it’s worth trying. Best of all. animations and other visual cues have been refined to the pcint where they add to the experience of using Unity and make day-to-day computing a pleasurable experience -we actually looked forward to using it each day. A good example of this is the way that applications added to the launcher are always placed above the workspace switcher, removable devices and...

Ever since Mike Saunders forgot to include it in a distro Roundup in issue one of Linux Format Slackware has a had a loyal following. In some ways it’s the purest form of Linux, as its development team (we say team, but really it’s the work of one man – Patrick Volkerding) tends not to modify the component parts in the way that, say, Ubuntu does. We love Slackware. We also love Xfce. It’s the desktop environment for people who don’t want to tolerate the hardware overheads demanded by such titans as KDE and Gnome, but it doesn’t skimp on finery, using as it does the same GTK toolkit as Gnome. Put the two together, add a few thoughtful customizations to make things easier for the user and you get VectorLinux, which is now at version 7. The most obvious addition to the standard Xfce desktop is the Cairo Dock at the bottom of the screen. Mouse over it and icons magnify beautifully, and those that contain further options display a preview (shown in the main image). Xfce has also been improved with an Applications menu, which provides a more intuitive way of finding installed software than the usual Xfce method of right-clicking on the desktop to open a menu. In places, the customization seems to have been taken too far, though, or done for no good reason. For instance, the Firefox icon appears in the Cairo dock, and there’s a different icon in the top panel that also opens Firefox- but this one looks completely different. It can be argued that the success of Debian- based distros is down to the excellence of their package management, and a corollary of this is that Slackware’s insistence on packaging applications as .tar.gz packages has held it back from further mainstream adoption. VectorLinux, however, uses the graphical Gslapt package manager, which...

Mark Shuttleworth has made a clear and present users of Ubuntu evolution of a new menu called HUD (Head-Up Display), as an alternative to an application menu designed especially for Unity, which should solve many of the current problems with the existing menu, fully satisfying users in usability. This new feature, introduced in unity, will save much time by simplifying the programs with which you interact, you can simply press the Alt key and tell the program what to do, without having to search for the function or command in the menu and submenu. In the future, this menu should be integrated with voice search. No one knows exactly if HUD is already integrated in the next version Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin by default! Installing HUD Here’s how to install HUD (Head-Up Display) in Ubuntu Precise Pangolin. Open the terminal by pressing the keys Ctrl + Alt + t then type: sudo add-apt-repository ppa unity-team/hud sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade [Video] Introducing the HUD to Ubuntu [Links] Mark Shuttleworth’s article “Introducing the HUD. Say hello to the future of the...

What’s New in FreeBSD 9.0 This article provides an overview of some of the new features available in FreeBSD 9.0. FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE introduces many new features which benefit FreeBSD users, application developers, and companies that use or base their products on FreeBSD. This article provides an overview of some of these features, including references to additional information. It does not list all of the new features as the FreeBSD 9.0 Detailed Release Notes, available from freebsd.org, contains a summary of all the changes introduced in 9.0. This article discusses features in the following categories: security, compilers and testing frameworks, filesystems and storage, networking, and miscellaneous. Security Capsicum Framework Capsicum is a lightweight framework which extends a POSIX UNIX kernel to support new security capabilities and adds a userland sandbox API. It was originally developed as a collaboration between the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory and Google, sponsored by a grant from Google, with FreeBSD as the prototype platform and Chromium as the prototype application. FreeBSD 9.0 provides kernel support as an experimental feature for researchers and early adopters. Application support will follow in a later FreeBSD release and there are plans to provide some initial Capsicum-protected applications in FreeBSD 9.1. Traditional access control frameworks are designed to protect users from each other through the use of permissions and mandatory access control policies. However, they cannot protect the user when an application, such as a web browser, processes many potentially malicious inputs, such as HTML, scripting languages, and untrusted images. Capsicum provides application developers fine-grained control over files and network sockets to provide privilege separation within an application, with minimal code changes. In other words, it provides application compartmentalization, allowing the application itself to provide many different sandboxes to contain its various elements. As an example, each tab in the Chromium browser has its own sandbox; it is also possible...

Company Canonical has presented the first prototype of Ubuntu TV In passing in these days of international Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas company Canonical has presented the first working prototype platform Ubuntu TV, oriented for use on a TV and set-top boxes. The first devices based on Ubuntu TV scheduled to be released on sale in late 2012. Already negotiating with several manufacturers of Smart TV, however, information on the concluded transactions are not available. Graphical environment of the new platform is built using the shell Unity, which is positioned as a universal environment for the full range of supported devices. All developed in the framework of Ubuntu TV components are distributed under the GPLv3 license and LGPLv3. The code can be downloaded from the specially prepared bzr-repository, instructions for assembly and installation can be found here. Supported by the ARM and x86. The appearance is based on standard elements Unity 2D, library Qt, libdeclarative-multimedia from the Qt Mobility, libqt4-declarative-shaders and GStreamer. The main differences from the version of Unity for desktop systems are observed in the simplified user interface and revision control system on-screen elements, which has been redesigned to use a limited number of buttons on the remote control (for control only four navigation buttons and a button selection). Of opportunities prepared by full implementation of the functionality of media center (own development) and a set of tools for working with cable and satellite TV (navigation on TV, downloading TV programs, search programs, record programs for delayed viewing, etc.). Ubuntu TV can work with local storage and network services with different content to search, watch movies, watch online-show, the work to YouTube, listening to music, receiving, and the formation of streaming. There is a system of a non-view, where you can stop being viewed on a TV movie and seamlessly continue watching it on another device...